Sometimes names affiliated with a film that have cut a legendary niche for themselves in other pictures can be a telltale sign of a mediocre film. After “The Devil’s Rejects”, Sid Haig and Ken Foree were everywhere, with some films not becoming of their legendary status. So I always take famous names in obscure films with a cautionary grain of salt. “Dark House” has Tobin Bell from “Saw”, elegant Lesley-Ann Down, and is helmed by Victor Salva of “Jeepers Creepers” fame. This could be a small scale project of exceptional quality and potential that the famous people that are in it believe in, or it could just be them phoning in a favor. “Dark House” is actually really good.

Nick De Santo has the ability to touch someone and see exactly how they will die. Unfortunately for him, and the other person, it doesn’t always work. Only if the person dies horrifically, will he be able to see anything. He wears “John Bender” style fingerless gloves so things like shaking hands doesn’t fill his head with visions of car crashes and house fires. He also has a mother in a mental institution that tells him cryptic messages about his father. When she passes, she leaves him an old Greek revival style house out in the sticks. The weird thing is that Nick has been seeing the same house in his dreams, and drawing it his entire life. Knowing he has to find out why, he takes his best friend and his very pregnant girlfriend on a road trip.

After talking to the locals, Nick finds out that the house got washed away in a catastrophic flood, but finds it down the river almost perfectly resting in a different spot. That’s the least of his worries though. When he attempts to go in the house, he is greeted with a pretty cold reception from Seth, a kind of mystical Joe Dirt with an army of unstoppable hatchet men. After narrowly escaping, Seth and his friends run across three county workers surveying along the same route. The rest of the film deals with everyone holding up in the house, and trying to survive.

Victor Salva, love him or hate him, has a talent storytelling or attaching himself to someone who does. In the beginning, Dark House doesn’t appear to be much different than any other movie that deals with a protagonist suffering from a second sight problem. It then takes some pretty impressive turns into the supernatural and maybe even into some demonic apocalyptic territory. I’ve said too much already. Dark House was a unique find with an original story built on a framework of the familiar. I guess that’s what caught me off guard the most.